It was an emergency “evacuation.”
An Etihad Airways passenger had to be wheeled off the airplane after he threw up over two dozen times during a six-hour “flight from hell” — which he blames on eating a “smelly” inflight meal.
“It ruined the first few days of my holiday,” Cameron Callaghan, 27, told Kennedy News while describing the messy flight. He is now chalking up his incident to “food poisoning” caused by the airline neglecting to take the “proper precautions” while storing their inflight meal.
The stomach-churning ordeal occurred Jan. 6 while the Brit was flying from Manchester, UK to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates en route to his final destination in Bangkok, Thailand, where he planned to enjoy a tropical getaway.
Unfortunately, the flight was delayed for five hours, so Callaghan decided to tide himself over with an egg sandwich three hours before departure.
When the plane finally boarded, the Manchester native said he and the other passengers were offered a “tomato, cheesy, chicken pasta,” which reportedly had an offputting stench.
“It did smell a bit weird but all plane food kind of does,” said the traveler, who devoured the inflight meal before putting a movie on.
Around 20 minutes later, he began to experience some severe gastrointestinal turbulence.
“I had diarrhea twice and 10 minutes after that I was just constantly throwing up for the duration of the flight,” recalled Callaghan. “I threw up probably about 30 times.”
The passenger added, “I was going to the toilet every five minutes, laying in the fetal position and towards the end of the flight, I’d emptied my body so much that I couldn’t even stand up.”
He said his symptoms were reportedly so severe that he had “to sit at the back of the plane with an air hostess while she kept the toilet free for me.”
Unfortunately, the pain wasn’t just physical for Callaghan, who said it was “embarrassing” having people go to the lavatory and see him “lying on the floor being sick.”
When they finally arrived in Abu Dhabi, the traveler was so weak he couldn’t lift his head and had to be helped off.
“They had to get a wheelchair and they wheeled me to the medical room in Abu Dhabi’s airport,” recounted Callaghan, who was assessed by a doctor and administered an IV with an anti-sickness drip.
While the treatment seemed to do the trick, the residual symptoms ruined the start of the bedraggled traveler’s Thailand trip, which was reportedly three years in the making.
Even after arriving at his destination, Callaghan said he felt so depleted he “couldn’t walk” and felt as if he was going to “pass out” — which he blamed on dehydration caused by the constant vomiting.
“The next two or three days after arriving in Bangkok I was just bed-bound,” he lamented. “It was only on the third day I actually left the hotel and started exploring.”
Callaghan blamed his illness on the pasta, claiming, “I believe the food had been sitting out since the original time the plane was supposed to take off and not been stored properly.”
He felt it couldn’t have been anything else as he felt fine for three hours after eating the egg sandwich and also hadn’t consumed anything the night before because he was stressed about his flight being delayed.
An Etihad spokesperson has since addressed the ordeal, claiming it was unlikely that their inflight meal had caused the traveler’s ailment.
“We take all such matters very seriously and investigate thoroughly,” they said. “Our food on this flight, as with all our flights, was prepared and stored under strict temperature-controlled conditions to ensure safety and quality.”
They added, “We did not receive any reports of illness from other passengers on this flight who were served the same meal. Our first priority is always the safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew.”
But Eithad’s meal culpa did not sit well with Callaghan, who argued that he wouldn’t have been sick 20 minutes after eating if it “didn’t come from their food.”
“It’s unprofessional how they’ve handled everything,” declared the irate flyer.
As reparations, he demanded a refund for the “flight from hell” along with an apology and acknowledgment that their meal caused his ailment, which he claimed made him dread the return trip.
“After what I’ve been through, I don’t really want to get on a plane so I’m stuck in Thailand at the minute,” said Callaghan. “I’m going to starve myself on the flight back so this doesn’t happen again.”
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